I just found an hour or so this weekend to make a quick test with just loading the garage 3ds model and exploring it using a fps cam

I should hopefully get some more time when the chrismas holidays are upon us.

The texture quality setting is set to low, but a high setting should fix the textures right up on the garage...

The "pink box" is the "collision box" for the car model

I think I can pull it off with irrlicht given enough time (which is my biggest problem atm)... After all, I DID get a bachelors degree in computer games programming back in 2007

Wow.

one of the things i like about then ew Unreal engine and Unity 3D is people will less programming experience can still contribute HOWEVER things can be tweak with C or C# or C++, one of those 3. Sssoo if a or the 1 and only programmer(s) gets laid or caught up with life the hold project doesn't get halted. (Which the SR3 project knows oh so well) both Unity and Unreal engines build out in windows, OSX and Linux too.

-Multiplatform-Coder friendly -less/non Coder friendly-Still fairly/mostly flexible-fair licensing fees, free version and or free if you games is free. pay version no more than $2k USD

for and while and still as far as i know Unity was decided on but, i THINK given our position, nothing is TRULY set in stone just yet. Which could be a good thing as Unity 3D and Unreal are duking out it lately with new features and updates ever few months. (How cool would it be to have oculous rift support in SR3?)

EDIT: that pink box is actualy not the collision, at least if it's from my model, MrChris put that there several years back as a size scale for me, it represents a 1950 cadillac or something like that (i forget), which would be the biggest car in the game, since it's one of the biggest cars ever made. (at least in that time period IRL)

it's really cool to see that model loaded up in irrilicht. It's most definitely cool to see some development action going on. I've been dragging my feet on my writing/planning end. Been keeping an eye on Unreal and Unity plan to look up some how to videos. Also got a new job too. I hold this job fora while it COULD open some monetary opportunities for SR3, like a pro/paid for game engine if need among other possible costs. again i say COULD but, ifi can manage to save and manage my money well enough I care for SR3 enough to plop down some hard earned paychecks IF possible.

Ok, I must admit that I haven't yet begun to identify the various models within the 3ds file. I just assumed it was a collisionbox because of its color and its placement

I forgot to mention that my quick test also incorporates the power of Newton and the power of TinyXML

Newton is a physics engine that is often used in conjuction with Irrlicht.

I used Irrlicht once before back in 2004 in an exam project.

I have used TinyXML back in 2011 in a project where I generated C code files based on an XML config file.

I will try to experiment with using the "no car" garage 3ds and then use my 32 ford roadster in 3ds format as the test car using the turbine wheels that I made... We need a lot of running gerar and engine parts models though...

My first goal will be to be able to have a car roll into the garage (using newton) when the "game" is launched.

this might be my inexperience showing but, my under standing is that irrilicht already has the bullet physics engine incorporated already.

Unreal 4.x is supposed to allow you to manipulate the source code if you need but, also has unity like setup as well. With unity you can buy scripts, also supposedly you can get the source code access if you need but, i bet it's pricey and you only really get it if if your big name title attracting attention and business like Wasteland 2 did.

EDIT:

I need to make some time to look at Unreal Closer so far from the news articles and comments it's looking good, supposedly a bit more flexible than Unity.

that might be an issue. for what standards we do define for the 3d models? the old SR3 standard are quite outdated. i wonder if can ad and change them as we go with out significant reprogramming being needed?

What do you mean all objects or nothing? what is the definition of object or rather what defines and object? in the 3ds file(s) that is. i'm just trying to understand what you mean.

as a non coder for me a 3d file consist of meshes, textures, bones and or collision files. we all know collision files are usually not seen and used for physics, boned being similar but, used to position things like lights and animations or interlinking of models in the game or application.

All assuming what I just said makes sense and if it does is not a time consuming question to ask.

on similar/same note.

The software have these days could open some doors. like say what if some of the suspension parts moved with the wheels? would they need to be a certain kind of object or need specific names in the irrilicht or would we need to pace bones in the model? Same thing for lighting GPU power is good now never mind when SR3 comes out, thing about a car's interior would we use bones for all the light sources like the dash and accessory light as well as head lights and tails lights? Same for moving engine parts like radiator fans and stuff. ...as in we might consider these might thing we might want to implement later .... or odes that matter? I'm not coder, i do know that shouldn't matter for now since your just testing the waters atm, so to speak.

what I mean by object (as defined by zmodeler 1 I think?), is collections of meshes in the 3ds file..

for example I think of the front left wheel dummy as an object within the 3ds file...

What I want to achieve for now, is to be able to (with irrlicht) to

a) load a single 3ds file and

b) then afterwards select for example the front left wheel dummy object

c) and then hide it,

d) then I want to load another 3ds file that contains a wheel, lets call it testwheel.3ds

e) and then use the coordinates of the wheel dummy to place the wheel from testwheel.3ds

f) and then use the local axis of testwheel.3ds to "spin" the wheel while moving the car

spinning and rotating stuff like wheels, steering wheel, running gear parts etc, could be done simple by rotating them along their own local axis

So either I need to find out how to do this in irrlicht or else I will need to place all parts of a car in seperate 3ds files and then use a setup file instead of dummy objects to assemble the various meshes from the various 3ds files in to a car

IF Irrlicht supports multiple objects within a single 3ds file, then most stuff could be handling using dummys within the cars 3ds file...

Anything that can be replaced or moved in some way or have some other function like lights would need dummy objects

The other option to have a bunch of 3ds files would also work and might make it easier to be able to replace body parts like doors etc... I was thinking that it could be kind of cool if it was possible to for example replace the left and right rear fenders with other types... like one set of fenders could have "wings" and another set could have no wings... stuff like that (like in Gearhead Garage )

then it IS possible to seperate multiple meshes/objects within a 3ds file, but it must be done using index instead of names...

I will experiment with this...

Perhaps if object names are loaded sequentially according to name,

then we can atleast know what is what if we have a fixed set of dummy objects/meshes that all start with Z

(assuming none of the additional objects/meshes use names that begin with a Z)

This unfortunatly disallows adding additional car specific named dummy objects, that is, all cars must have the same maximum set of dummy objects since the index of each dummy object is then hard coded,

A workaround for this issue could be a combination model (that is both dummy objects within main 3ds file as well as seperate objects controlled by configuration file) where additional non standard car parts are placed in seperate 3ds files along with a location, and behaviour, configuration for each car that supports the use of that particular part...

that might be an issue. for what standards we do define for the 3d models? the old SR3 standard are quite outdated. i wonder if can ad and change them as we go with out significant reprogramming being needed?

Yes, we should be able to change the models without too much hassle... Irrlicht should not care too much about what poly count a model has.

So this should pretty much allow for drop in replacement models that are much more detailed and much more realistic.

what I mean by object (as defined by zmodeler 1 I think?), is collections of meshes in the 3ds file..

for example I think of the front left wheel dummy as an object within the 3ds file...

What I want to achieve for now, is to be able to (with irrlicht) to

a) load a single 3ds file and

b) then afterwards select for example the front left wheel dummy object

c) and then hide it,

d) then I want to load another 3ds file that contains a wheel, lets call it testwheel.3ds

e) and then use the coordinates of the wheel dummy to place the wheel from testwheel.3ds

f) and then use the local axis of testwheel.3ds to "spin" the wheel while moving the car

spinning and rotating stuff like wheels, steering wheel, running gear parts etc, could be done simple by rotating them along their own local axis

So either I need to find out how to do this in irrlicht or else I will need to place all parts of a car in seperate 3ds files and then use a setup file instead of dummy objects to assemble the various meshes from the various 3ds files in to a car

IF Irrlicht supports multiple objects within a single 3ds file, then most stuff could be handling using dummys within the cars 3ds file...

Anything that can be replaced or moved in some way or have some other function like lights would need dummy objects

The other option to have a bunch of 3ds files would also work and might make it easier to be able to replace body parts like doors etc... I was thinking that it could be kind of cool if it was possible to for example replace the left and right rear fenders with other types... like one set of fenders could have "wings" and another set could have no wings... stuff like that (like in Gearhead Garage )

lets simply that. in GTA series, the car mesh have no wheels and bone in stead. so need to hide the wheel, just load in the desired wheel model.

ACTUALLY ...... i think damn it's been so many, year. i think the model has like 1 rear wheel, then it's duplicated but, that's retarded. I like the above idea better because i seem to think i'm talking about. (i probably don't )

if that can be accomplished car model would consist of less meshes and more bone, and every thing in else in different 3d files, and loaded in. the stock parts and or options and all the meshes and texture could be dropped in a folder or compressed file or whatever. (again i might be talking crazy here)

I wonder if Hellmark has the source and or more information on the old AUX format.

Also i don't mean changing out models, i mean how the game handles them. sort of like. I mean like weather or not we uses bones for wheel and part locations or just objects names etc etc, would such change require vast rewriting of code?

I wonder if Hellmark has the source and or more information on the old AUX format.

Also i don't mean changing out models, i mean how the game handles them. sort of like. I mean like weather or not we uses bones for wheel and part locations or just objects names etc etc, would such change require vast rewriting of code?

I found the source code for version 0.4.4.1 ( streetrod3-src_0.4.4.1 ) on an old hdd backup.

I will try to see if it compiles in visual c++ 2008 express

If not then I might still be able to use lots of stuff like the 3ds format code (since it is also coded in c++)

I think that we would need some re-coding if we decided to switch from dummy objects to bones... but the more modular the code is, the easier it is to change stuff.

I think I might be able to make the car driving into the garage animation during the holidays...

I have been improving the test wheel slightly ( I decided not to use the turbine wheel for testing)